Lenovo H420 Desktop takes over 5 mins to boot up

We have a Lenovo H420 desktop that takes over 3 mins to boot up. After you switch it on, the monitor displays a black screen with 'Lenovo' in white writing and remains with this screen for minutes on end seemingly doing nothing (hard drive cannot be heard working and it's activity light doesn't flash). After about 3 minutes Windows 7 suddenly loads in a matter of seconds.

Any ideas what is wrong? Is this normal?

We've only had this computer for about 3 months and it has been doing it since we bought it. We reset the computer back to its factory settings but that hasn't changed anything. Bios doesn't seem to be accessible as no startup screen saying press del for setup etc shows.

Re: Lenovo H420 Desktop takes over 5 mins to boot up

How about trying to press F12 at startup, (I have a U160 and I have to press Fn+F12), and see if you can bring up the boot order. See if there's anything in front of the hard drive as far as booting. There should be an option at the bottom of that screen to enter setup, see if you can get into the setup utility from there.

Just press the F12, don't hold it down, it might take a couple of trys to get the timing right. I press mine just before the Lenovo screen comes up and when that screen comes up, it says at the bottom, entering boot order. Holding it down just boots into Windows.

Re: Lenovo H420 Desktop takes over 5 mins to boot up

Thanks for your reply. Tried what you suggested and it didn't work; the keys did nothing. So I removed all peripherials, switched the computer on, and it loaded up lightening fast. It turned out it was a card swipe scanner that was causing the slow startup problem. Without it, the bios settings can be accessed and the computer loads fast. The scanner isn't faulty because I tried our spare ones and the result was the same. Thought if I changed the startup sequence so hdd is 1 and usb fdd etc are excluded would sort the problem out, but it didn't.

At least we know there is nothing wrong with the computer. We'll just have to live with the slowness!

Re: Lenovo H420 Desktop takes over 5 mins to boot up

I tried the link for the hardware maintenance manual but it doesn't work. Is there a new link? I need to get into Bios as I need to configure the boot priority so that the first boot device is the cd rom device and I need instructions how to do that and then how to change back.

On this subject why wasn't the hardware maintenance manual incuded with the computer

For future reference, these are available by going to SUPPORT (above ) -> QuickPath (enter model or machine type) -> Guides and Manuals

Z.

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Re: Lenovo H420 Desktop takes over 5 mins to boot up

I went and changed the start up in the set up utility but it didn't work. The only other USB CD/DVD is excluded from the start menu. I need to be able to load my rescue disc from my anti-virus company. Do you have any suggestions?